


Out of the Cold and the Dark

by fransoun



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-The Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye Issue 5 (IDW), mentions of canon-typical violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-14
Updated: 2016-08-14
Packaged: 2018-08-08 15:03:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7762465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fransoun/pseuds/fransoun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Delphi was falling away behind them, and a small part of Ambulon almost wanted to go back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Out of the Cold and the Dark

Ambulon never thought he would regret leaving Delphi.

He certainly wouldn't miss the cold. Or the snow. Or shoveling the snow. Or the storms that would encircle the planet, blizzards that would rage for days, _weeks_ on end, trapping them inside and dumping so much of the damnable white powder on the ground that the incessant howling winds could blow it into drifts higher than his head. That he would then have to shovel. 

If he never had to de-ice himself again, Ambulon would be one happy 'con - uh, 'bot.

It had been ten years since he'd switched sides. He'd thought he'd be used to it by now.

He wouldn't miss Pharma, either. The jet might have been an amazing doctor, but he'd also been a total control freak, and Ambulon didn't appreciate being told how to run his ward. He was good at his job. 

It was almost all he had left.

Oh, and Pharma had hated him, too. 

Ambulon had seen it in his optics every time Delphi's CMO had so much as looked at him. Every glare, every sneer, the disgust that had dripped from every word Pharma had ever spoken to him. He'd gone out his way to make Ambulon's life even more miserable that it already was. (Ambulon hadn't thought that was even possible, but Pharma had proved him wrong.)

Because Pharma hated Decepticons - _hated_ hated them, as First Aid had oh-so-eloquently put it, and the "ex" in front of Amublon's affiliation didn't seem to matter to him one bit.

Or so Ambulon had thought.

Except Pharma had made a deal, hadn't he - a horrible deal, an awful deal - a deal that had kept them all alive. Not their patients, of course, but the three of them, the doctor trio - and how much better would it have been for Pharma, how much easier would it have gone for him, if he'd only made the deal for two, and given up the the traitor in their midst?

Ambulon couldn't think about that too hard, not now, not yet, because that brought him to thoughts of the one other thing he definitely wouldn't miss.

The DJD.

He'd watched every broadcast they'd made in the ten years since he'd turned traitor, every single one. He'd seen every torture, heard every plea for mercy. And after each and every one, he had gone and hidden himself away somewhere in the dark to curl in on himself and shudder and shake until his own suppressed screams stopped shorting out his vocalizer.

First Aid had come across him in a supply closet after one such... _incident_ , sitting on the floor with his arms wrapped around his knees, hugging his legs tightly to his chest. Ambulon's helm had jerked up and he'd stared at that dark figure silhouetted in the doorway, optics going so wide with fear it felt like the lens might pop out of their frames.

But First Aid hadn't asked him what was wrong, or what he thought he was doing, or what was he _thinking_ watching the broadcasts like that. Instead, the junior medic had fetched a thermal tarp and a cube of warmed energon and then settled down next to the ward manager, leaning up against him until he'd stopped shivering.

It wasn't the start of their relationship - that had come later - but it was the first time Ambulon had been close to someone, had _wanted_ to be close to them, in a long, long time.

And it was the one thing he was afraid he might lose by leaving Delphi.

At the front of the shuttle, First Aid conversed quietly with Ratchet. The three medics were the only ones left awake, used to long, strange hours, even longer and stranger than the warriors, who could at least rest after the battle was over. Drift and Pipes were both still recovering from Pharma's plague, too, and five years in an eternal coma hadn't done Fortress Maximus any favors, either.

Ambulon recognized Aid's tone. It was the same determinedly cheerful one he'd used every evening as they sat together, sipping their energon and sharing each other's company. Just the two of them, alone against Pharma and the cold and the dark.

But there was something else there, too. First Aid sounded almost... _excited_ as he asked after Cybertron, for news of the end of the war, and about the ship and the quest and the crew that he and Ambulon were about to join.

Ambulon looked over at Drift, asleep in the seat next to them. If all of them were as good-looking and as interested in medics as the other ex-Decepticon seemed to be in Ratchet, then Ambulon was in trouble.

\-----

"Ow! Ambulon, careful!"

"Sorry, sorry."

The two of them were heading down a long corridor where (they'd been told) they could find the ship's bar, Ambulon tagging close behind First Aid. A bit too close, apparently. 

"'Swerve's'," First Aid read aloud off the garish, blinking neon sign above them. "Think this is it?"

Ambulon gave him a flat look, and he knew by the way First Aid's optics glittered the junior doctor was grinning unrepentantly back at him. 

Then the glow from his visor softened, and he reached over and squeezed Ambulon's hand.

"Ready?" he asked.

Ambulon took a deep breath and nodded, and First Aid pressed the control panel.

The doors slid open, and an avalanche of sound washed over them. Ambulon flinched, instinctively dialing down audios still used to the muted beeps and whirls of a quiet medical ward and the distant howling winds outside. 

When First Aid paused inside the door, Ambulon, still sticking as close to him as he could, ran into him again.

"Ambulon!"

"Sorry!"

There were Autobots _everywhere_. Clustered around tables, perched on stools, packed together on the dance floor. Ambulon was used to being around people, but those people were _patients_ , who generally just laid around on their medberths and didn't - 

There was a mech standing on the wall. 

"First Aid!"

First Aid tugged on Ambulon's arm, and Ambulon tore his optics away from the gravitationally-challenged mech to look where he was pointing. A mech seated at one of the tables was waving them over, although how First Aid had picked that single movement out of the sea of motion Ambulon had no idea. 

First Aid laced his fingers through Ambulon's and gave his arm a gentle tug, towing him towards the table. The crowd buffed and jostled and scraped up against him, and Ambulon winced and clung to First Aid for dear life, flaky paint falling around him like snow.

When they arrived, the mechs seated at the table had somehow packed themselves even closer together to make room for them, and Ambulon and First Aid squeezed in.

The mech who'd waved them over - Pipes - immediately launched into introductions, and Ambulon, just as immediately, got completely lost. He was used to learning about people through their files.

Or through their gestalt bonds.

He tried anyway. There was Tailgate and Rewind and Chromedome and Hound and Whirl and Trailbreaker and Xaaron - 

The storm of an evening wore on, and Ambulon clamped down his plating and weathered it.

\-----

The second time, Ambulon told First Aid to go on without him, and First Aid bumped his faceplace to Ambulon's cheek and slipped out of their room.

The third time, Ambulon grunted and shook his helm, and First Aid gave him a long worried look and laid a hand on his shoulder before heading out the door.

\-----

The fourth time, Ambulon was sitting slumped on the berth, staring at the floor, when he heard the soft chime of the door that preceded the entrance of someone with the habsuite's code.

Ambulon looked up, optics widening as First Aid walked in, then jerked his head back down again.

"I thought you were going out tonight," he muttered.

"I was," First Aid said. He sat down on the berth across from the ward manager. "But then I decided I'd rather spend the night with you." 

Ambulon kept his gaze fixed downwards, jaw working.

A Delphi-like silence settled over the room, soft as a blanket of snow. Finally, Ambulon could take it no longer. He blurted it out - at the same time First Aid asked his own, much gentler question.

"Ambulon, is everything alright?"

"When are you going to leave me?"

First Aid was the first one of them to recover. "...what?"

Ambulon stared at the deck plating like he was trying to bore a hole through it with his optics. "I thought it would be better if I didn't know. If I didn't know, then I could just pretend like it wasn't going to happen. But it is, and I can't, and I just - I just need to know _when_."

First Aid seemed to choose his words carefully. "...why would I be leaving you, Ambulon?"

Ambulon gestured at the ship all around them, feeling thoroughly wretched. "Because - because we're _here_ now, and there are _other_ people here, too, and you're going to _meet_ them, and then you're going to have _options_ , and if you have options why would you stay with me?"

He slumped down even further. "Maybe you'll even get to meet the Wreckers."

First Aid shifted on the berth, leaning forward a bit. "Ambulon, do you know _why_ I like the Wreckers?"

Ambulon stared stubbornly at the floor. "Because you think they're exciting. Because you think they're _exciting_ and _glamorous_ and they go on _adventures_ and their leader is _Springer_ and he's _big_ and _strong_ and has a chest so wide it could hold _ten_ Matrixes and he's a triple changer and he turns into a _helicopter_ and - "

" _Ambulon_."

First Aid reached across the narrow gap between the berths and took Ambulon's hand, and Ambulon finally lifted his head. 

"Ambulon, I loved those stories about the Wreckers because I thought they stood for something. They were heroes, y'know? They took on the missions everyone else said were lost causes, and they did it to help people, to save lives - even at the cost of their own. And I thought that was noble and brave.

And then I met someone who was just like them."

First Aid's optics glowed so brightly Ambulon could see them through Aid's visor. He couldn't seem to look away. 

"He had enough courage to run from the Decepticons, and he had enough courage to run _to_ the Autobots. He had so much courage that when the Autobots assigned him to Delphi, he _didn't_ run. He stayed and he helped save lives, even though it was inside the DJD's territory and he was on the List - "

Ambulon squeezed First Aid's hand. First Aid smiled faintly.

"He even kept to the Autobot Code when the other two medics were more willing to...bend it. Maybe even break it. Like when he convinced them to take in two scared Genericons, even though that would put him in even more danger than he already was."

Ambulon snorted. "That nearly got us all killed." 

First Aid shook his head. "That was _Pharma's_ fault, Ambulon, not yours. _You_ did the right thing even though you were scared. And do you know the most incredible part? You didn't realize how amazing it was. You didn't think it was anything special. You didn't realize how amazing _you_ were."

"I…"

"I'm not going to leave you just because there are other mechs around now, Ambulon. I like you for _you_. I _love_ you for you."

First Aid slipped off his berth and pulled himself up onto Ambulon's, settling himself next to the ward manager. He wrapped an arm around Ambulon's waist and leaned his head against his shoulder. "Okay?"

Ambulon nodded slowly, flecks of paint scraping off and drifting down around them as his helm brushed against First Aid's. "...okay."

\-----

Some time later, Ambulon had stretched himself out along the berth, his legs crossed at the ankles and his hands clasped behind his helm. First Aid had curled up against his side, one red-and-white hand resting on Ambulon's chest as his fingers gently smoothed down the curling peels of paint there.

Without taking his optics off the ceiling, Ambulon took a deep breath and then mentioned as nonchalantly as he could, "I used to be a helicopter, you know."

He could hear the smile in First Aid's voice. "Is that so?" 

"Mmhmm. And I was the leg in my gestalt unit. That means I'm really strong, too."

First Aid's voice was breathless with suppressed laughter. "Oh, really now?"

"I bet that makes me pretty attractive to you, huh?"

First Aid let out a coquettish little _oooooo_. "It certainly does."

As a tinge of smugness leaked out into Ambulon's field and First Aid laughed and snuggled closer, Ambulon realized that for the first time since they'd left, he didn't miss Delphi at all.


End file.
